We Have To Live (Even If We Don't Want to)
by Eternal Love Song
Summary: In the aftermath of Thanos' attack, Loki and Tony have to deal with being the only ones left. [Implied/Referenced Character Death, survivor's guilt, Frostiron]


There was a chill in the room. Tony shivered a little where he sat at the table despite wearing a jacket. He wouldn't say anything about the temperature, though. He never did. He once stayed so long that his fingers started to get numb, but he kept his mouth shut about it until he left and then let himself warm up with whiskey.

Loki always kept it cold, though he didn't enjoy it. There were always mirrors around the room, though more often than not they were kept covered. Tony sometimes wondered why he bothered with them, but he never asked. He didn't want Loki to ask him questions about why there was a battered suit and a twisted shield in his living room. Though Loki didn't need to ask questions about that, Tony was sure that he knew. He knew the way that Tony knew why there was a small pile of broken metal always on his counter beside a bottle of alcohol Tony was never allowed to touch.

They didn't always talk when they were together. More often than not, if they were here they usually stayed quiet and didn't even look at each other. At Tony's they would drink, break things, move in some way. He wasn't sure how they had formed these habits. They didn't talk about it, it just happened. They didn't talk about a lot of things they did, though they spent a lot of talking. Relatively.

"She could have drunk you under the table," Loki said. Tony turned his eyes from the bottle on Loki's counter he'd been unintentionally staring at to where Loki stood in front of the open window. He wasn't looking at Tony. He wasn't sure that Loki was looking at anything, really, just staring out the open window. A soft breeze brushed his hair, and Tony was almost too cold to shiver by the time it reached him. "She could have made an art of it, if she wanted to."

A lot of responses passed through Tony's mind, all progressively worse, before he decided not to respond to the statement at all. "It looks like trapped fire," He said.

"Tasted the same," Loki told him. "He tasted it once, you know, and utterly blanched."

He... There were two "he's" that Loki could mean, but Tony was pretty sure he knew which one the god meant. Tony's lips almost stretched into a smile. They certainly tried to, but for all the strain that he could feel in muscles as they moved to make the motions, he was certain that he wasn't enough to show. There were enough time lately where he thought that he was surely smiling only for a mirror to reality check him. "You got him to drink? I never could."

"She got him to, more than we. They were... they'd become close twice over by that point. Comrades," Loki explained. "He was the only one that wasn't... complicated for her."

Tony nodded, understanding. They had a lot of these vague, disjointed conversations. Tony had been the cause of at least as many as Loki, but Tony had more people to reference. The thought made whatever smile he thought he was presenting die immediately.

"They were complicated for me, too. We fought right before..." He tripped over the words, just like always, even when he told himself that this time he could surely speak plainly. He told himself that everyday, that he could call his friends by name, talk about what happened, and yet every time they had these exchanges they both dances around the subject. "He still looked happy that I was the only that lived."

Loki scoffed. It was full of so much bitterness that he was sure it was for both of them when he muttered, "The fool..." Loki turned slightly, leaning against the wall, and Tony caught sight of a trail of tears. "He should have lived." He slammed his fist against the wall. "He should have!"

Tony's eyes moved back to the pile of metal. "He wanted you to... to live."

"Fool..." Loki repeated, the hoarseness in his voice clear.

Tony stood and went to Loki's side, wrapping one arm around him and pressing his face into Loki's shoulder. "I want you to... to live."

Loki let his head lean on Tony's. "You say that because we are the only ones that have. You say that because I am the only one..."

"Doesn't matter," Tony told him. Because it didn't, not anymore. Even if that was the reason that this started, it wasn't the reason that it continued. Not the entire reason. "You're here and I want it to stay this way. I want you to be here."

Loki was trembling. It was... odd. He was used to Loki being as still as a statue most times and the only time his body trembled was when they were at Tony's, in bed or pressed against a wall, trying to lose themselves in each other's body because they couldn't get lost in mind. Their thoughts were in the same place, they were both in the same state of drowning, it was easy to cling together, but most of the time they didn't. So when they did, it was the only time they really broke out of their median behavior. Loki trembled and Tony... became still. In some ways, he supposed that he was Loki's pillar. It was only fair with how often Loki was the one to pick Tony up and put him bed, peel a glass out of hand and replace it with food.

"We lived," Tony said. It wasn't often he said it out loud, not while Loki was around, but it needed to be said.

"We shouldn't have." Loki's voice was a whisper. "It shouldn't have been us."

"But it was," Tony told him. He moved away so that he could look directly at Loki as he spoke. "We have to deal that. Like we've been dealing with it."

Loki's eyes were still wet from his earlier shed tears. It made them shine, made Tony's heart ache, made him want to... Tony leaned up on his tip toes to press his lips to Loki's. Loki made a broken sound in his throat and gathered Tony in his arms, pulling him closer, clinging to him. Tony pulled his lips away, but didn't try to escape. belatedly, he returned the embrace. As much as he had come to depend on Loki, he still wasn't used to what they had. He didn't even know what it was, but he knew that they had both come to depend on it more than anything else.

"We have to live," Tony told him.

"This is cruel."

Tony closed his eyes, focusing on the feeling of Loki's arms keeping him in a nearly crushing embrace. Keeping him from falling apart without even having to try. Always perfecting being the line between restraining Tony and allowing him to cope in his own unhealthy ways. "Yeah. It is cruel."

"Anthony," Loki whispered. "Please... tonight... stay."

Tony didn't want to go anywhere anyway. Even if it was too cold for comfort, Tony was pretty sure that was the point. Loki kept it just at the edge of uncomfortable, trying to punishment and Tony kept coming here because part of him felt that he should be punished, too. But punishment didn't mean that they couldn't... have something, even just something small. It had been too long not to try.

"Yeah," He told Loki. "I'll stay."


End file.
